The Leghorn

Journal of Contemporary Southern Humor

We are currently seeking writers, cartoonists and other funny content creators!

We continually seek smart, original, southern humor, professionally written with a creative and unique point of view. We are open to various formats as long as the piece is funny. We are not interested in publishing pieces that are not funny. Do not try to fool us by submitting unfunny pieces. It won’t take us long to catch on.

How do we define “southern humor?” Essentially, we’re looking for humorous works about, or of interest to, those who live in, have lived in or have been influenced by the people and culture of America’s great southern region. We realize there is a lot of ambiguity there and quite a bit of room to argue but we think we’ll know it when it comes our way. Keep your submissions of interest to or about people of the south and you should hit our target. Our main goal is to publish works which surprise and enlighten people about the southern experience, as well as demonstrate humor outside the stereotypical “cornpone” jokes much southern humor has been traditionally known for. We attempt to set a different standard for southern humor.

We’ll look at almost any submissions that are funny, even experimental or non traditional works. Feel free to give it a shot.

WE ARE INTERESTED IN:

  • Essays
  • Short humor
  • Cartoons
  • Reviews
  • Monologues
  • Observational and Intellectual Humor
  • Sharp social/political satire
  • Fresh takes on old topics
  • Unexpected southern opinions
  • Southern takes on non southern topics (and vice versa).
  • Topics or viewpoints that break old southern stereotypes.

WE ARE LESS INTERESTED IN:

  • Old-style southern humor (Hee Haw, hillbilly burlesque, cornpone humor)
  • Satirical news items (similar to the Onion, Borowitz Report or The Babylon Bee.)
  • Topical humor with a very short shelf life.
  • “You might be a redneck/hillbilly/southern if…” style of jokes.
  • Any humor where the punch depends upon outdated southern stereotypes or which unfairly ridicules or disparages the southern region.
  • Pieces which are condescending to southerners or reduce them to simpletons.
  • Unnecessarily mean/cruel, racist, misogynistic or anti LGBTQ humor

Please understand we know what we want. A rejection doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t like your work, just that we are not able to use it for our publication at this time. If we like your style but not your specific submission, we might ask to see something else. If we like your caring, yet, solid forearms, we might ask you to hold us tightly in a flash thunderstorm. Don’t define us.

SUBMITTING WRITTEN WORKS:

Before receiving actual finished pieces, we prefer an initial contact from you with a brief bio, list of experience and a basic outline or description of your proposed work. If you have a completed article, send it as a Word/plain text attachment and also printed within the body of the email. Just those two options. Nothing else. Do not send Google Docs, links to Google Docs, links to blogs, websites, etc. We will not visit any links included in unsolicited emails. Send no more than three pitches or finished works of 600 – 1200 words (or less). We prefer previously unpublished work but contact us to try and change our mind. We attempt to respond within two weeks. We also attempt to not stop at Krispy Kreme every damn morning but take a look and see how that’s going. If we do not respond, feel free to reach out and remind us. (Maybe, also, tell us to lay off the donuts.) We publish pieces on a rolling basis so we’re pretty much continually open to submissions. If we are backed up or slow, we’ll let you know.

Email your pitches, outlines or completed works to editor[at]theleghorn[dot]com. In the header of your email please put the word “SUBMISSION:” followed by the [SUBMISSION TITLE.] The point is, attempt to make it easy for us to find, read and enjoy your submission.

We’re a new and very small publication and currently do not pay for submissions but it is our goal to do so as soon as possible. In the meantime, we are open to including donation links (PayPal, Ko-Fi, Buy Me A Coffee, Patreon, etc) to you on your published piece.

If an accepted piece needs minor editing (punctuation, capitalization, etc.) we will make the changes. If an accepted piece needs a bit more editing (sentence structure, spelling, etc.) we will contact you before we make changes. If an accepted piece needs substantial editing (joke structure, fact checking, clarification, comprehension, etc.) the work will be returned to you for changes and resubmitting. We may also contact you regarding any other changes we feel might improve or strengthen the work. You may use AI as an editor but we do not publish works created entirely by AI. It’s been our experience that AI isn’t that funny anyway.

SUBMITTING CARTOON WORKS:

We like single panel, New Yorker-style gag cartoons. They fit really well into our publication but we are open to multi-panel cartoons as well. Color or black and white is acceptable. At this time, we are not interested in serial strips, strips with recurring characters or traditional style editorial cartoons, although we welcome cartoons which are mildly political. Cartoons should follow the same standards listed above for written works.

Send readable images at 72 dpi with the smallest side no less than 1000 px. JPG or PNG formats work best for us. Please attach the images to your email. Do not send us links to cartoons, Google Docs, social media image links or links to cartoons on websites. We will not open or visit any unsolicited links.

Cartoon captions should be legible on the image however, we will most likely reset the caption in a font that is consistent with our publishing fonts. Strips that utilize hand lettering as part of the art will be used as is. Please check for spelling and legibility.

 

Issue #1 is scheduled for Winter 2025/26

 

All works submitted to us remain under the copyright and ownership of the authors, however, upon acceptance for publication, you grant us unlimited usage of the works for online publication, promotion of the online publication and future collections of the publication either digital or print.